While the aerospace industry does borrow heavily from traditional manufacturing, it varies enough to warrant an altered set of manufacturing practices; for example, the process of building a car and building an aircraft are extremely different. Aerospace manufacturing is lower in volume with a higher level of customization and greater complexity. For instance, two adjacent aircraft on an assembly line will often differ significantly based on their engineering and installation revisions. Therefore, it is important for our industry to recognize the need to develop updated solutions together, share our intellectual property more openly, move to adapt as many “standard” manufacturing tools as possible, and most importantly to engage with software vendors as strategic business partners. At Greenpoint Technologies, we have been successful with this approach. We challenge our internal customers to provide the context for variation from out-of-the-box software capabilities. When customization is necessary to support a valid business requirement, we help them understand the development backlog, the priority of their request and provide them with information that sets clear expectations. We participate in conferences, host webinars and share our approaches and experiences with our suppliers and outside organizations. We are actively engaged with our primary software vendors (our partners) and frequently participate in feedback sessions, customer advisory board seats, conferences and work to establish solid relationships between our in-house development team.

The opportunities that would lower costs and drive value are massive for many second and third-tier players in the aerospace industry. These organizations are small enough to be nimble, allowing them to invest in cloud technologies, systems, and adopt modern IT practices such as DevOps and Agile development with a rapid return on investment. At a middle level, these suppliers encourage the smaller players and new entrants to modernize, and continuously challenge the top-tier, traditional IT shops to advance innovation.

Like most advanced industries, aerospace has a unique set of challenges that defines its business, operations and approach to technology. As an IT leader in aerospace, there are numerous opportunities to deliver business value that directly contribute to organizational efficiencies and ultimately affect the bottom line. IT leaders often find themselves subject to the budget and technology constraints of their organizations, as well as facing additional pressures such as the consumerization of IT to weave employees’ work-life seamlessly with their daily life, new technologies employed by business partners and the industry’s conservatisms as a whole. Bringing together the monetary and human resources necessary to keep pace with these demands can often be daunting. To be successful, aerospace IT departments must continue to redefine themselves from the perspective of being a cost-center to a business partner. Redefining requires willingness to rethink the traditional models of enterprise IT, expand internal development capabilities, and collaborate with software and hardware vendors to build the aerospace industry platforms necessary to support future industry and business needs.